Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in paddlesnake007's LiveJournal:

Saturday, July 17th, 2004
4:30 pm	There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues Well, it's been forever since I updated. Not a lot has happened around here. Work goes on, The Room abides. That's really what I can say about right now, The Dude Abides.... Well, Otakon is in a few weeks so that will be an entertaining trip. I also have to start writing my paper for SURE soon enough. Well, here's hoping that the next update isn't as far away as this one was. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 15th, 2004
9:52 pm	Late in the evening It has been a while since I last updated. Not much has happend in the past week or so. Experiments at work are proceeding. Things come and go. This Sunday is Father's Day, so I need to remember to pick up my dad something. I have no clue what to get him, so it wll take some time and thought. Tomorrow, I am headed up to Athens for Annual Conference. Two of the members of the Wesley Foundation are speaking on the GWSM. It should be interesting. Maybe while I'm there, I'll look up some of my old friends at The School Formerly Known As U(sic)GA. Current Mood: indescribable Current Music: Paul Simon: Graceland (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 5th, 2004
8:34 pm	Some Reagan Quotes to consider... The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated. I hope that when you're my age you'll be able to say, as I have been able to say: we lived in freedom, we lived lives that were a statement, not an apology. Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong. I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey? We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.  Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. And how stands (America) on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.  We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God. (Speech about the Challenger disaster). General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Democracy is worth dying for because it is the most deeply honorable form of Government yet devised by Man. (Comment on this)
7:15 pm	A Moment of Reverent Reflection. I went to Chattahoochee River National Rec. Area this afternoon for a walk in the woods. Very relaxing. I drive home listening to Emerald Rose (Celtic Folk). I park, go up to my room, and get on the internet. My homepage, FoxNews.com, pops up. Ronald Reagan has died at age 93 in California. This is both a moment of great sadness and great happiness. Great sadness for the passing of the most dominate political figure of the latter half of the 20th Century, and great happiness that he has been released from his earthly shackles of Alzheimer's. This will be an interesting week, with all the tributes that will be going on. The final judge of Reagan's legacy will be what we are missing. We are missing the Soviet Union. We are missing the Berlin Wall. We are missing Central American Communism. We are missing double digit inflation and unemployment. We are missing the "malaise of freedom". We are missing Ronald Reagan. "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done"  Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) Ronald Wilson Reagan: 1911-2004 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 1917-1991. 'Nuff Said! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 1st, 2004
8:16 pm	Keep pushing on... It was a pretty nice Memorial Day weekend. I went home on Saturday, after failing to convince anyone in the room to come along. Oh well, their loss. The Daniels, our good friends and next-door neighbors, threw my brother a dinner party in honor of his graduation. There were steaks the size of my dinner plate. We all decided we were on the Atkin's Diet and stuffed ourselves full of steak, chicken and sausage, then finished with some homemade ice cream. It was really nice. \ On Sunday, my cousin came to visit from Clemson. Caroline had to pick up one of our sleeping bags before she leaves for her job in Minnesota. It was really great to see her. It will be a long time before I get another chance to see her again before she leaves for Europe for a year. Sunday was spent going to see some old friends in Dalhonega, my co-workers at Appalachian Outfitters. Seeing Ben, Nathan, Forrest, Todd, James, Chapin and Naomi almost makes me regret working here at Tech this summer. We all had some good times working on the river. So, all in all, it was pretty good, I suppose. Now come two hectic weeks at work. At least my uncle is coming for a visit on Thursday. Current Music: Allison Kraus + Union Station Current Viewing: Mahoromatic Quote of the Day: "Reality is that which refuses to go away when I stop believing in it." Phillip K. Dick (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 27th, 2004
11:57 pm	Debriefing on Skidaway Trip Well, after all that driving, we're back from Savannah. It was an interesting, if short, trip. Dr. Ingall, Vivian and I were down at Skidaway Institute of Oceanography for the past two days. The purpose was sample collecting for our respective projects. For Vivian's project on electrodyalsis, we had to collect and filter about 100 liters of seawater. That only took about 5 hours, and we only managed to blow out about 4 filters. Heh, and the floor in the Benthic Wet lab got mopped several times. We collected my samples this morning. These were sediment plugs and some buckets of marsh mud that we collected off the boardwalk in the ecological preserve. Thankfully, we got it all before the tide came back in, flooding the whole place. The muck was really thick, and I got stuck twice in it up to my knees. Vivian and I were both down in there and we both got pretty nasty. There was a camera present, so I'll try and get the pictures up. Anyway, the mud is all up in the cores and buckets and is down in the Environmental Control Room for storage over the weekend. Afterward, we took Vivian to Old Savannah and had lunch on River St.. Spanky's was as good as usual. We are well in the process of getting her addicted to sweet tea. All in all, we will see how good the samples turn out to be in the next few days. We will go back down in about a month, when it's hotter and there are more bugs. Joy. Current Music: The Best of REM Quote of the Day: "If you believe everything you read, better not read." - Japanese Proverb (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 25th, 2004
9:00 pm	"Oh the times, they are a-changing..." It's an interesting time in my life right now. I was back home in Gainesville this past weekend to attend my brother's graduation from high school. My parent's house is now empty... It's sort of strange thinking that now there is no one I know that is at North Hall High. Well, C'est la Vie! We have a new girl joining our team for the rest of the summer. Her name is Vivian Chang and she is from San Francisco. She is a rising senior at the University of San Francisco. There's some sort of program with Biology that is going on, and she's a part of that. She seems like a nice person, and is actually pretty cute. We had a going away party with the EAS Dept. for Dr. McPherson. She is leaving for greener pastures at MIT. It was just some cookies, chips and dip, and lots of Fosters. Tomorrow, our team leaves for Skidaway Island. I'll write a little on that when we get back on Thursday. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 20th, 2004
6:03 pm	Success! (...of a sort) Proving that good things come to those who wait, or at least those who run calibration standards 7 times. The graphite furnace is working! And what are the results of the first core samples, dare you ask? "Below detection limit parameters..." Oh well, next time we wont do a 1:500 dilution. Anyway, that's all of the work stuff. I'm going home this weekend for my brother's high school graduation. Try to beat Atlanta traffic tomorrow. Today's quote: "And we must realize that we must live in the world etsi deus non daretur (as if there were no God), and we must do this ever aware of actions before God" - Deitrich Bonhoffer - Christian Philosopher, Doctor of the Church, Martyr (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 18th, 2004
4:20 pm	Well, this is worth a shot, I guess.... It's official! I'm now a college internet geek. Getting a live journal and all. This will be always a work in progress, when I need to comment on events, vent, and otherwise pollute the internet with my unqualified advice and opinions. If it's not good, it should at least be interesting.... (2 Comments |Comment on this)